Prequel to Rebellion
by Sempronia
Summary: In the 73rd Hunger Games, a Tribute from District Six deals with her suicidal fellow tribute and hints of the rebellion while attempting to find meaning in staying alive.
1. Chapter 1: Almost Out

**[Author's Note: So...since people obviously aren't reading this. Tell me what you hate/like/are unfazed by, so I can make it more interesting and relatable! REVIEW, please. Seriously, take a moment and tell me your thoughts.]  
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I was chosen the very last year that I was eligible. Eighteen and ripe for the Reaping. I guess I was lucky in that respect-I had the advantage of age; the youngest tributes almost never made it very far.

Feeling lucky wasn't something I would need to get used to though, throughout the Hunger Games

* * *

><p>The voice comes in to me from outside the window. High. Tinkling with laughter even this early in the morning. "Chrome!"<p>

I shift even deeper in my covers, my movements making the frame of the bunk bed creak. The metal was a poor grade and decades old: the best District Six had to offer. "Chrome!"

Streak is getting impatient. She's used to my sleeping in, but she must be on edge for some reason. And then I remember...it's Reaping Day.

The realization runs a chilly, invigorating path through my body. The last year to wake up dreading the day, I think. At the same time, as I go through the motions of dressing, arranging my hair, a little part of me is terrified. But there's still today, it says.

Streak is pacing up and down the slim top of a brick wall by the time I meet her. Her worn leather jacket catches on the crumbling mortar when she leaps down, and she tugs it loose before commencing our walk through town. "Can you smell the difference in the air?" she asks.

"Yep," I say. I'm glum, but my answer manages to sound grimly buoyant. "By the end of the day, two less people will be breathing it."

"More room for us," she returns. Streak is small, but sturdy. Her cap tilts towards the ground, putting her eyes in half shadow, hiding beneath it a round, determined face. She's one of the tiniest women on the assembly line and one of the most productive.

I've never been able to beat her quota. Then again, I'm hardly ever in that part of the factory to try. Ever since I was about fifteen, they've kept me in the Finishing area, putting the final touches on automobiles, trains, elevator cages. Of course I only work part time, but we try to get placed into something when we're young.

I'm a few inches taller than Streak, but I'm still small. And more than that, fragile, compared to most girls on the Block. No muscle definition, or staying power. My fingers, though, are where I make up for that lack.

The overseers found me in metal shop during an inspection of our school when I was working on a simple cart. My teacher had been lecturing me on the extreme delicacy of my wheels. I'd made them far more ornate than the blueprint called for.

Thankfully, this was a plus for people building to the Capitol's tastes. They set me up as a designer and "polisher", making automobiles more pleasing and elegant for the wealthy passengers. In return, I am paid a small (and I do mean, small) wage that can contribute to my family's income.

Streak and I turn automatically down a narrow street that blossoms into a grid of factories and tenements. Wet asphalt has given our walk a less smoky scent than usual-unsettling after our recent comments. It's as if the District Six tributes are already out of our midst.

The Canteen is across from Factory Five, and provides meals for the workers every afternoon and evening. In the morning, like now, the cooks are only just beginning their day. But by the time we reach the smudged iron and glass double doors, we realize that today is their day off as well as ours.

We decide to make the trek to the other side of town, to the junkyard where we've played since we were little.

* * *

><p>How many hours have I spent scouring the scraps of broken and destroyed metal? And what have I been looking for?<p>

I pick up a piece of steel that once was a car door-or a section of a door-and hold it up to Streak where she stands atop a pile of crushed buses. "That's nice!" She calls back. When we meet up again, she's holding a fist-sized plastic light that once sat on the roof of a Peacekeeper vehicle. Her hands examine the chipped red case, poking where the light would have been attached.

She sits on the scrap of steel I scavenged. Later, she'll use it for something else. Maybe a tray. Maybe a small table top. I've always been astounded at the uses she can find for things everyone else throws away. Maybe she'll let me do some filigree work on it...

The junkyard is an interesting mix of refuse. It has the standard wreckage, cars, buses, hovercrafts, carts used in mineshafts. Sometimes a train car from one of the lines going to and from the other Districts. We like to nose around in those, if they haven't been crushed already. No one but designated officials get to travel out of the District-ironic for a place specializing in transportation.

New models outshine the older, so we have a peak at the outdated styles of the Capitol, even if we don't work in Assembly. And an added bonus with the cars is the stuff that is tossed out with them. Dinner services, silverware, tablecloths, velvet seat cushions. You can sell all of it. You have to be careful about doing so, but almost everyone has something in their homes that Streak and I have lifted from the yard.

It's another source of income, although if someone really needed something, we usually couldn't turn them away. There are so many people in the Block's crowded apartments that things got worn out quickly, and more often went missing. There was a thriving drug market, if you want it. It's hard to afford though. Most have to steal to keep up the habit.

* * *

><p>The sun's high in the sky by the time we leave for town. We usually skip breakfast to save on food so I'm used to the feeling, but for some reason today, I feel twice as hungry than I am normally. It's as if my body is telling me to gather as many nutrients as possible, just in case.<p>

Just in case, I think. In case this coming meal is one of the last I'll ever need. My mind is foggy, and I come out of my starving reverie only once Streak and I reach my building. Instead of seeing me off at the door, and going back to her own apartment, Streak follows me to the third floor where our friend Titania lives.

Titania's littlest brother opens the door. At his heels is the next oldest, and they run off together as we crowd inside. Someone shouts hello from the kitchen. We make our way through the apartment, small, but larger than my own, and find Titania up to her elbows in bread dough. Her mother, a stout, dark-haired woman, stokes the coal stove in the corner.

"Ready for your last Reaping, girls?" She asks. Mrs. Waters has coal-black eyes, the same as her daughter, and they glint fiercely. I can tell she's determined that her daughter won't be chosen this year. Confident.

Titania comes over, toweling flour off from her hands. "As we'll ever be." My friend beams, yet her smile doesn't carry the same faith that her mother's did. Streak pulls out her slice of metal and presents it awkwardly. Change of subject. Before she and I head home, all of us sit down for tea, reliving the past twelve years of our friendship.

Titania brings up a time back in second grade when I was reprimanded by the teacher for drawing during lessons. They couldn't find me for hours afterwards and finally, Ti opened a cupboard at the far side of the room, revealing my hiding place. Everyone howls in laughter, and I just remember how cold the cupboard was.

* * *

><p>My brother watches me enter our apartment, pressing his lips into a thin, look-what-the-cat-dragged-in sort of line. He knows that our mother will have wanted to spend the morning with me. It's not just the reaping, but the fact that I'm old enough in a month or so to strike out on my own. Not that there's a lot to strike on in District Six.<p>

I head to the room that Marten and I share, and hurry to get dressed so that I can be out at the table when Mother comes home. She's probably used the time I was gone to go to the market. We try to have some kind of commemoration every year. Something that says, I'm glad it wasn't me.

Clothes that are untarnished by smog or smelting burns are hard to come by-most of the time I wear denim pants or coveralls that can take the abuse. A shirt light enough to breathe in the heat of the factory after school. Today though, we'll be expected to be in respectable condition.

So when I'm ready in a cotton dress, I return to Marten. Or I think I am. There's a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom, and right away I can tell he's in none of them. I wonder where he's gone before my mind registers something from a few minutes ago. His expression, the pallor of his skin. I suppose it was around time for his next hit. He confirms my suspicions by bounding into the room from the landing outside our door. His sleeves are pulled down, unusual for him.

He shakes off my intent gaze by flattening his collar, straightening his cuffs. "I don't know where Mother is, but you'd better get to the center." At the center of town is the square, where the Reaping will take place. "It's almost two o'clock, now."

I nod, knowing it's stiffer than usual, and make for the door. "Hey," he says, catching ahold of my shoulder. "Good luck." Glassy but sincere, his eyes follow as I close the door behind me.

Seven reapings. That's how many I'll have been through by the end of today. I've only taken tesserae three times. The odds are in my favor.

Lined up with the rest of the Eighteens, I try to bob my head between necks to see the stage that's been set up at the Justice Building. You can always watch the screens they put up for the audience, but it really takes away from the immediacy of the event. I make myself live it. I live it as much as I can because someone won't be living at all pretty soon.

I owe it to them.

Someone nudges me on my left, and I see Titania step into formation beside me. On my right, Streak falls in as well. This will be it for us. We smack our hands back and forth with one another like in a children's game. Both of mine with one of theirs, each.

Next to me, Streak closes her eyes. Without looking, I can tell she's smiling, taking pleasure in the simple movement. Titania adds her left hand to the mix, enclosing mine with gentle slaps, bottom top bottom top bottom...it begins to synchronize with my heart as we stand still, waiting for the show to begin. She's worried.

Then, with a metallic screech, the microphone comes to life and the speakers in the square reverberate the sound through the crowd. Taps come next, as our district escort, Pallas Palantine, tests the mic yet again. His voice booms over us: "Welcome to the 73rd Annual Reaping of District Six and Panem!"

He must be in his thirties, but the current fashion of the Capitol makes him look like he's been alive for every Hunger Games. Hair powdered white, with matching eyebrows and lashes, he reads his yearly welcome speech, dressed to the nines in an ocean of malnourished steel workers. I give up my useless stretching at this point, and lift my eyes to the enormous screens.

Our Mentors sit to the side of the podium, dressed in what must be their best, but looks like something thrown from a malfunctioning kiln. The woman, Singe, wears a bright orange dress that spirals up around her neck and wrists, an odd sight for someone over fifty. Her counterpart, Torch, is practically aflame in a blue outfit as bright as Singe's. Neither look fully present, despite (or maybe as a consequence of) their dress. All the makeup in the world couldn't hide their yellowed skin that seems to be melting as we speak.

They look alarmingly like my brother. This makes sense, when you know they're both morphling addicts. Where is Marten now, I wonder.

The Mayor steps up, reads his part, and resumes his seat. He's a puffy man. Not particularly plump, just tipping middle age and showing it.

We're silent. Pallas steps back to his podium to wish us luck, May the odds be ever in your favor, only to stride over to the glass orbs containing the name of every child between twelve and eighteen.

"Ladies first," he states. No flourish. No smile. He might even look a tad reluctant today.

I'm suddenly aware that my friends' hands and mine are no longer touching. We've hesitated between claps, and instead our palms hover next to one another.

So when he reads out my name, they're right there to catch me.

* * *

><p>I wake up, or...was I asleep, even? No-I'm on my feet, walking forward somehow. I look briefly to the side, just out the corner of my eye, and see Titania and Streak. It's just a glance. Not much of a chance to see anything.<p>

Their expressions, though. Frozen. Terrified.

The rest of the District is still. Like I am, inside. After the initial shock, I feel I've never been calmer. You can't fall to pieces if the worst has already happened. If I'm meant to die in the Games-and I am, more likely than not-I'm as good as gone now. Why fight it?

A flag flaps somewhere above us. I've taken so long to reach the stage that Peacekeepers have begun to walk towards me, to escort me up the stairs. I manage without them. I'm a little surprised I don't fall. My legs are numb...

And when I believe that I can maybe make it through the rest of the ceremony, I hear Pallas again. "Our boy tribute,"

I don't recognize the name. He's a year or so younger than me, I think. I can feel how blankly I must be staring at him, but I can't change my expression. As he steps out of his group and walks towards us, he catches his shoe on another boy's. He falters and they steady each other. Then, back away to continue on. They're friends, perhaps. What are his friends like? Does he have many?

In a moment, he's there with me, and we're made to shake hands. It'll be a pleasure killing you, I think to myself. It was a joke, something I did automatically. But immediately I am sorry.

"Hello," I say.

He grimaces, as if I'm too dumb to kill. That's okay. He can let someone else do it.

The Mayor steps back up, telling the story of the formation of Panem and the Districts that once rebelled, and were made to pay for years to come. Our Mentors look at us dreamily, foggy inside their own drug spun world. Singe takes my hand in both of hers and gives me a smile, kind yet slightly deranged.

My fellow tribute is approached by Torch. Shyly, the former victor hugs him. The boy simply pats the older man's shoulder. He looks grateful for the strange embrace. The audience applauds politely in the background.

I'm just trying to get another look at my friends when Pallas comes over to me, ushers me beside the boy, and gives a final, "The District Six Tributes!"

The applauding continues.

* * *

><p>We're supposed to say goodbye to our families. To do so, we're led off the stage and into the Justice Building.<p>

It's a huge structure, built not of steel and glass like everything else around here, but of brick and stone. A mural is painted across the high, domed ceiling, and held in by carvings of men and women with wings assembling trains, planes.

They put the boy tribute and I in separate rooms, and I suppose he waits for the door to open just as I do, to let in our visitors one by one. I really should have stayed with Marten, to spend the morning with my mother.

Marten looks the most like her, but Mother is small like me. Her dark hair isn't bobbed as most women in the District have theirs, but pulled up into a loose knot at the crown of her head. I think of her home, alone, with Marten to worry about. He's ten years older than me but less practical; he won't be much help as far as money goes. It'll be like I hadn't happened-as if the clock is reset to a time before I was born.

They'll have one less person to care about. It might be lonely for a while, having been used to three people in the apartment. They'll get used to it, though. Eventually.

If I could summon a response during our encounter, I would tell her I'm afraid to die and that it isn't fair. That I was almost out. But neither of us can, and we stand holding each other for our allotted time, and she doesn't say goodbye when she leaves. She says, "I love you" and, "You can win."

Marten brushes past her, coming in. "No one volunteered. I...was expecting someone to volunteer." His sleeves are pushed up again, like normal; he's shaky though. Not normal.

I think I laugh. "If it wasn't me, it'd be someone else," I hear myself say. My arms are regaining sensation, and they're cold. Pieces of meat hanging from hooks where my shoulders should be.

"Someone volunteered for me." Marten says, his eyes wide, apologetic. "I-I can't volunteer for you."

"What? Well you're not a girl..." I stop. "What do you mean someone volunteered for you? You were...you...?"

"When I was twelve." He looks ashamed. "Someone stood up to take my place." Lost. He looks lost, too. "I'm your brother. I'm supposed to be able to protect you. To at least try."

We stare at each other. "I've done a damn poor job of it."


	2. Chapter 2: Letting Go

A rectangle of mottled light plays across my bed. The train has been moving westward all afternoon and into the night, and the trees that grow in stretches alongside the track fascinate me. I hold out my hand, and watch the shadows of leaves against moonlight speckle my fingers. I'd never seen a tree before we began speeding toward the Capitol.

We never learn much about the different districts in school, other than how large they might be, what they produce. We know what parts of Panem they're situated in, the sections of the country once known as America they grew out of. District 12 used to be a place called Appalachia. The Capitol is in what used to be the Rocky Mountains. District Six supposedly had lakes bordering it, long ago.

Now, it's eaten up in its entirety by warehouses and factories. I try to imagine the place I grew up in as it was hundreds of years in the past; a landscape fuzzy with trees, animals in the forests. Wide expanses of water just over the horizon.

My bedroom on the train goes beyond the bed, but I'm reluctant to get out from under the covers. Pallas told us the chest of drawers is full of clothes for our use. The shower sits unutilized in the other corner. I've dreamed of having these things, but didn't expect to be given them, even in this situation.

It seems ironic-all the luxury before the slaughter. Do the people in the Capitol know what it's like to live in the Districts? Maybe we're expected to be as well taken care of as they are, and we can't be seen as the undernourished worker ants we actually are. That wouldn't be nearly as impressive, I think. Watching as twenty four street children eviscerate each other.

I've had all afternoon to explore my compartment and the rest of the train. I couldn't bring myself to, though. After we boarded, Pallas led us into another car and we sat down to watch the recap of the Reaping throughout Panem. Singe and Torch sat in chairs on either side of the couch where Pallas and I sat with Rig-that's the boy tribute's name.

Twenty two tributes, each with family, friends. A seat in a classroom empty for everyone. A place in an assembly line.

After years of watching the Games on television, you would think you'd become desensitized to it. Every time a name is called in a district, from the multitudes gathered before the stages, it hits you: they aren't going back. And this time, I will likely be responsible for that.

The Careers from One and Two look pretty much the same. Well-fed, groomed, confident. The male tributes are tanned, some with bulky muscles, some with lean athletic builds. The females have strong shoulders, bold eyes, short hair sometimes. Trinket, the girl from One has gorgeous chestnut hair that reaches her thighs.

District Eleven has a pair of tributes that could be brother and sister, they look so much alike. Right away, I christen them The Twins. When they're called, they step right up. Twelve is not as stoic. The boy and girl are small, underfed, you can tell.

Everyone anticipates District Four, because Finnick Odair is Mentor. He glistens onstage, as if he just slipped out of the water. But he doesn't smile when the names are called. He grips the hands of the boy and girl as if he can transfer some of his winningness to them through his fingertips. The girl looks simultaneously like she can't believe she's touching him, and like she's about to be sick.

Whether it's because of the celebrity in front of her, or the coming bloodbath, is debatable.

Rig shifts in his seat. The screen has also changed. We're on. This is extremely strange to me. I watch, rapt, since I can't remember what transpired after I was called. "Chrome Grant." There I am, with Titania and Streak horrorstruck. I don't fall like I thought I did, I can see now. I stand mutely, not even raising my head for a score of moments. Then, with brief glance behind me, I move.

Pallas pulls the second slip of paper from the giant bowl, calls "Rig Simon." For the first time, I see his face, unobstructed by adrenaline or fear in my system. They do a close-up as he reacts. Which they must regret, because he doesn't.

He glares stonily at Pallas, like our escort has chosen him on purpose, before he lowers his grey eyes and steps out of line...and falters. I take my eyes off the television, embarrassed for him. I'm sorry that he stumbled, knowing that that might give people the impression that he is clumsy. That kind of prejudice can make it hard to get sponsors. Without sponsors, it's that much harder to survive.

I notice I've been going along as if he is going to die with me. There's the chance he may win, however. That he might have to kill me to do so. That he's already planning this. I can't blame him if he is; but it would be easier if I were able to think of us as partners. We could survive longer together.

District Three is Technology, and the tributes are certainly wiry-looking. In the arena, people from this district have electrocuted people, killing whole groups at once. I pause to guess what might be in the Cornucopia this year-will there even be something conductive? There's an odd that there could, in fact, be nothing but knives and cheese. Some people don't even get that far, so it doesn't matter what it holds.

The girl, Audia, wears glasses, and carefully folds them, putting them in a pocket in the front of her blouse before she goes to the stage.

Nine and Ten come next, Grain and Cattle respectively. Block, the male tribute from Ten wears weird, sturdy boots that come halfway to his knees, and look like they're tipped with steel. The girl wears a smaller pair in the same style. In nine, the girl that is called has curly, short hair that reminds me of the fibers that peel away with the husks on corn.

We stay in the car until the last three districts tributes are chosen, and Pallas keeps Rig and I behind when our mentors clear out for bed. He leads us to the observation carriage and we sit in one of the white leather booths, looking out at the pinpricks of light that dot the night.

Pallas crosses his legs, indicates the land speeding behind him, "District Five. Electricity, I'm sure you know."

Rig raises one eyebrow. Disdain is the one emotion I've seen him exhibit, today. He didn't even blush during our replay.

"...Yes." I acknowledge. I guess Pallas is sort of a dandy. His accent is less affected than others from the Capitol, but the hair and clothes make it hard to take him seriously. And we should be, I realize, suddenly. No matter how bizarre he seems, he is still who will be talking to the sponsors for us. Torch and Singe are obviously incapable.

He's clearly thought this himself a number of times, as the first words he speaks into the awkward silence are, "I must apologize for Miss Norton and Mr. Hebrides. Their condition is no boone to your situation. That too, I suppose you already know."

He tugs at his pant leg, straightening a crease marring the line of the fabric. "You've both been remarkably calm, however, with the shock of today's drawing. I've seen it before, but it wears off. That's good: you need to get acclimated to the atmosphere that is going to surround you as soon as possible. Absorbing information is crucial, if you want to stand a chance."

"How do you think we feel?" Rig asks. He has a low voice that squeaks on the high notes. "You're not exactly the one who has to get used to the eventuality of your death, are you?" His face is a mask of extreme skepticism. Pallas meets him with his own crooked eyebrow.

"No. I'm not. But I've had to accompany those that have dealt with that fact or better or worse, with varying outcomes. You may not recall all the tributes that've gone before you, but I do-"

"Don't remember them?" I ask. Is he serious? "How can you imagine that we don't? They're people we've grown up with. I've had eighteen years to meet them and watch them die." I'm not sure if I was aware before now, but I do remember them. All of them since I have been old enough to pay attention. Their names run through my head...

"Hebron," says Rig. I'm surprised, but gratified. "He was last year, and the year before was Pane." He looks at me from his side of the booth.

"Spoke and Fever." The female tributes from Six that were paired with Rig's two. Fever was in my metalworking class. "Before that were Mandala and Thermin. Then Feron and Ash."

Rig continues, "Brake and Lattice." Brake was a blond townie that my brother used to hang out with. Lattice was a grade above mine.

"Solder and Velocity." Velocity had been a beautiful girl. Thirteen. She was killed on the first day. Solder was twelve.

"Lush. James won that year-then died." Lush had been in my classes the previous year in school. I see Rig's eyes welling up-out of anger or sadness? He goes on, though.

"Terran and-"

Pallas cuts in. "Impressive. You have, appropriately, tried to shame me." He watches us for a bit, then. An attendant brings in a carafe of water and three tall glasses, and promptly disappears again. I'm breathing hard, and study the glass closest to me as my breath fogs up the glass, slowly dissipates. "I'm sorry," says Pallas. He pours us each some water and waits for Rig and I to drink.

I nudge Rig, who has begun to look at the floor, his cheeks burning. His lashes flick as he darts a tired look at me, and reaches for his glass. This is as far as he seems to get, so Pallas continues.

"One of you is going to die. At the very least. And I'm sorry for that. I do not sit in the presidential mansion toasting the Tributes' murder each year. You don't appear to believe that I do my best to keep you alive."

"Why bother?" I ask. I feel Rig's attention catch, and he turns his head, listening more closely.

"There have been Seventy-Two Hunger Games. Of which I have been alive for thirty-seven. Someone has lived in almost every one. It might be you. If I believe that-if I can make you believe that, then your chances increase. Because that's all this is. Chance. You were picked by chance just like you were born in the Districts by chance, just like I wasn't, by chance.

"You are here, like it or not. Do not let them have the satisfaction of killing both of you simply because they have the chance to."

It would be a rousing speech if I thought it meant anything. "But it's not only that," I say. "They don't just have a chance. They have the opportunity. They have the advantage. I'm not a Career-I was dead when they called my name."

Rig looks up. At me. At Pallas. "The Gamemakers. They can kill us however they want to-weather, mutts. We're only alive as long as they like us. And they only like us when we're killing each other. She's right." His face swivels back to me. "I didn't train for this. The odds aren't in my favor either."

"So you want to give up," Pallas wants to know, dumbfounded. "You're going to walk into the arena and let whoever gets there first, kill you."

There's a noise. Like a choke, or a laugh...I can't tell if it comes from Rig or Pallas. They do both appear to be near a hysterical laughing fit. Then Rig chuckles, softer now.

"No. I'm not going to let them kill me." He says. "I'm gonna do it myself."


	3. Chapter 3: Alone

My stylist's name is Valencia. A top-heavy woman with bouncing brown curls piled high around her head, the make-up she applies makes her eyes seem to appear out of clusters of stars. Her skin is the loveliest shade of ivory I've ever seen on someone. So many people back home have been burned or maimed in the factories that almost none is scar-less.

When we descended from the train sometime around midday the next morning, Rig and I were ushered by Pallas into an elevator, and propelled upward to the sixth floor of the Training Center. There, a whole team was waiting to transform us from members of the poor District rabble to true Tributes of the Capitol.

Valencia is assisted by two other stylists, an Avox named Tullia and a man, Theo. Tullia buffs my nails as her partner finishes waxing all the hair from my legs. He doesn't have much else to remove-the hair on my arms has been burned off from working around open flames and scalding steam.

I wonder how Rig is getting along, and what he's been subjected to by his own team. I hope they're working the miracles I've seen performed on myself, as he's getting ready for the most spectacular suicide in history.

His face flashes in my mind, angular, with messy brown hair. The determined look in his eyes when he said he was going to take care of the death part himself.

Pallas hasn't talked to him since last night on the train. I think he's disturbed as much as he is frustrated. I didn't even see him give Rig instructions before he was taken off to the stylists. What advice do you give to someone who isn't going to fight?

Torch and Singe seem to know something is wrong with him. I saw Torch watching Rig plaintively this morning at breakfast, and Singe patted his hand as she walked by the table. (She doesn't eat much.)

I'm a little wary of what Valencia has in store for me; I've seen the absurd costumes that are popular in the Capitol, and the even stranger getups that the tributes are placed in for the interviews and chariot ride. District Six is hard to design for, I imagine. Transportation. A lot of the tributes have been lit up with headlights, or strapped into metal contraptions resembling shells of vehicles.

Beauty Base One looks like me on a very good day, perhaps having just gotten out of bed. Tullia's made my skin clearer by applying a kind of salve that shrunk the blemishes on my jawline, and polished the drier parts of my cheeks. My face is more open, now, my eyebrows shaped by plucking.

Valencia clicks into the room atop her porcelain colored heels. Behind me, in the mirror, she smiles radiantly, dark eyes crinkling. She's a popular stylist in the Games, mostly because of her beauty rather than her contestants'. Her voice is smooth when she asks me, "How much are you willing to lose?"

The question stumps me. Willing? I'm pretty much going to lose just about everything. It's not my choice. Then it dawns on me that she's referring to my hair.

"Oh." I sound like I don't care. I really don't, though. "However much."

Her mouth quirks to one side. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

I feel the locks of hair fall against my shoulders on their way to the ground. In no time at all, my scalp is lighter, and I have the sensation of having become more aerodynamic. Although I've been staring at my reflection, I haven't been seeing-my vision comes into focus with snips of Valencia's scissors.

The Chrome that looks back at me doesn't come from the District Six I know. She hails from some other, dreamlike Six that the Capitol wants to promote, romanticize. My oval face is framed by long pieces of hair that point just below my chin, with a thick fringe covering my forehead, highlighting the new eyebrows Tullia created. The rest has been chopped off at the nape of my neck, giving me a helmet of sleek, brassy-brown hair that pays homage to my normal bob.

Valencia sprays my head with a long can of something metallic, and I look like I've been caught in a shower of golden rain.

A highly uncomfortable dinner follows my remaking. We have a floor to ourselves, which equates to a suite including a dining room, television area, and rooms for every member of our team. I arrive to the dining area having been proceeded by our mentors, Pallas, Rig, Valencia, and a blue-haired man that sits next to her.

"Chrome, dear," she calls out to me as I sit down-we're at a long wooden table lit by candles and covered in rose petals. "This is Numen, my partner. He's styling Rig."

Numen nods to me, and I see pearly flakes sheen where they're inlaid at the corners of his eyes. Reflexively, I check Rig's appearance, as if they might have done the same to him. None such changes. He looks up at me and away, displeased at my scrutiny. His hair has been gelled into a spikey plume.

Valencia and Numen exchange small smiles.

Various delicacies sit before us, spread out in what would be more than four courses at home. Although I'm intrigued by some of the desserts, most of the entrees scare me with their alieness, and I stick to what I recognize.

Across the table, Singe plays with a skewer, drawing designs on her plate with something Torch calls a strawberry, which she dips in a pot of melted chocolate. It's the first time our male mentor speaks, and it startles me to hear how feeble his voice sounds. He must remember the fruit for some special reason to break his silence.

Pallas sees my expression, and leans over on my left, saying quietly, "He survived in the arena for three weeks eating only strawberries and dandelion greens. There was no animal life in the Games that year."

My interest in the bright red food immediately wanes.

However, the dinner seems to enliven Singe and Torch in a way that breakfast and lunch couldn't. Perhaps their systems wake up with the ingestion of so much rich food to absorb the morphling. Singe begins to hum loudly to herself around six o'clock. I don't recognize the tune, but find it oddly pleasant.

The other tributes must be talking strategy right now. Planning how to hook sponsors and the best way to survive the free-for-all at the Cornucopia in a few days' time.

Meanwhile, here we sit, our drug-addled Mentors humming away, with an escort that won't even look at one of us. The boy sitting to my right is going to kill himself.

And I don't have any clear notion at all what to do to keep myself alive once I'm on my own...

The tributes from other districts will have all kinds of advantages on me. They'll have grown up fishing, or hunting possibly. Districts One, Two, and Four have trained for this their entire lives and will know how to manipulate weapons. The tribute from Seven years ago was a deadly axe thrower, thanks to growing up in the Lumber district. Some will have had survival training.

There are three days of training provided for us, before the Games. There we can show what we're capable of, or hide those qualities if that is our strategy (sometimes it pays to keep the other tributes in the dark about your skills). I drift off into my own thoughts, hearing utensils clink against plates every so often. Do I have any abilities?

Any useful abilities, is the real question.

I start with the factory. What I do every day to make money-they wouldn't pay me anything if I wasn't any good. I can stain wood-great. Heat metal enough to bend it-doubtful in handiness.

I can mold things to cast in metal: useless. I can design graceful lines to accent the curve of a train cab. Terrible. I can make wheels that are so delicate they seem to shiver with lack of integrity.

My chair screeches. _Stupid_. I'm standing at my place setting, shaking my head in consternation. I sense the looks on the faces of the people around me as they try and place my outburst. They must think I'm insane. Maybe Pallas understands, but I doubt he does completely. I have absolutely no practical skills at my disposal. There's no way I can learn enough during training to keep me alive.

I was right, on the train. I'm going to die.

I leave the table, walk down to my room, and lock the door. The bed is covered in a goose-down comforter, stacked with pillows in shades of pale green and rose. The rest of the room is white, all plush rugs and plump cushions. Furniture is unused and shiny.

I wonder if they change it out every year. Brand new amenities for brand new tributes. If I don't touch any of it, maybe they can use it again.

The silkiness of my hair occupies me. I twirl it in and out of my fingers, stroking the smooth strands. They gave me a haircut just so they could watch me die in it. I'll be a beautiful sacrifice, at least. I trace the newly unblemished line of my jaw, thinking of how I've never looked prettier than I do today. I won't even get to die as someone my friends and family recognize…

My gaze fixes on the hand that plays with my hair.

Another finely manicured set of fingers lay on my pillow. Tullia glued on acrylic nails when she saw how I'd bitten mine down so ruthlessly. The tips are painted titanium white, giving them an immaculate finish.

Incensed, I lift a nail to my mouth and try to pry it off with my teeth with painful results. I attempt it with a second nail for good measure, but it hurts too much. Defeated, I return to my original position until another idea comes to me. I hop off the bed, almost skipping to my bathroom. I rip open a cabinet contained in the mirror, finding what I'm hoping for.

For the next half hour, I methodically soak my nails in polish remover until the glue dissolves, and shimmy and pick each false nail from my real ones.

"I can't believe you've undone all of Tullia's hard work!" Valencia scolds me, inspecting my hand in her own. She pouts. "And it would be unhealthy to fix them, now."

"I would have had to remove them before I went into the arena anyway," I tell her. "At least these look like me."

She's turned away from me in frustration, and does an about face then, studying me. "We aren't going for a 'you' look," she says. "We're trying to intimidate. To create you into something more than just 'you'." She steps forward, taking my hand again, but gentler. Her dark eyes are actually a deep blue, I notice. And presently, they're stricken-looking.

"You're best chance of staying alive is making an impression. Whatever you're demeanor says to your competitors, makes a difference in how they will approach you."

This stirs a thought. "What is Numen doing to Rig?" I ask.

Valencia leads me over to a corner of the dressing room and pulls aside a curtain, revealing my outfit for tonight. "You won't exactly be matching; but you'll be complimentary."

I'm not sure how to judge the thing before me. It takes me a moment to see what it reminds me of...a stewardess dress. It could just as easily be an improvement as well as a step down from our district's previous costumes. I look at my stylist, and want to know how such an impeccably-dressed woman could manufacture such a monstrosity.

"Don't look so perturbed. It won't look as kitschy on as it does on the hanger. I had Tullia try it on." She takes the dress down, and motions impatiently for me to undress. Poor Tullia. And what does 'complimentary' mean for Rig? I reluctantly slip into the dress, which feels alarmingly comfortable, and she zips me up.

Valencia takes a breath, and pushes me towards a long mirror. "Now, what we're going for, is ladylike." As I catch sight of my reflection, she continues. "I know the stewardess thing is a bit dated, but I needed womanly. Smart, but feminine."

My toes swish beneath the delicate fabric that skims them. It's a cream sheath, enclosing my body in skin-tight pleats that fishtail out just below the knees. I consider it. It does look womanly. _I_ look womanly. The collar of the dress sweeps along my collarbone, accenting my slim neck, and my face looks like a moon dusted by the shimmering powder she applied earlier.

What makes it look so like a stewardess is the row of buttons that runs down my front, just over my heart all the way to where the dress billows out. The sweep of the neckline is created by a fold in the fabric, like an abnormally large collar wrapping around my shoulders.

My stylist eyes me approvingly, and just a little bit smugly, now that she can tell I'm not completely put off by her design. "We'll put your hair up, and we'll be done. Well, except for those nails." She clicks her tongue, waving me away from the mirror and beckoning me back to the prep chair.

Rig awaits me in the lower level of the Training Center, standing at attention in the chariot we'll be paraded around City Circle in. I catch myself gazing at him as I step carefully into the base of the metal basket. He's almost blinding with the ceiling lights above and behind him pushing his silhouette forward.

As I study him, I begin to see how we complement each other. Whereas I am the lady chosen to augment your travel experience with my presence, he is the conductor, the man in charge of your welfare on your journey.

He wears a jacket that could have been fashioned from molten metal, the buttons from polished silver like one of the dining services Streak and I pilfer from the trashed train cars. His pants are cream like my dress, tucked into boots the grey shade of smoke. They match his eyes.

"All aboard," he says under his breath to me. "First chariot to glory and oblivion."

A suggestive pronouncement, one that, along with his new look, nudges me into the present, and the gathering storm we're riding into. I grip the rounded lip of our vehicle. Oblivion is right.

"You tore off your nails," he observes, surprised. I'm embarrassed, feeling suddenly like a small child found out doing something immature. The warmth of a blush creeps across my cheeks and nose. _He's younger than you!_ I assure myself.

"Yes. I couldn't do anything with them on." I qualify anyway.

"Uh huh."

The eleven pairs of tributes take their places in line with us, and we observe the pairs from Five, Ten, and Four queue in front. A tall girl in a golden swimsuit, finished with a gauzy train gets into the chariot alongside the boy from Four. Her face is impassive, strong. The boy is comes only to her shoulder, but is stocky. They're careers, I remember.

I also remember the girl's face when Finnick Odair shook her hand, and how dizzy with excitement or dread she had appeared.

Trumpets blare, and the anthem is played before the first tributes start out of the holding area and into the street. There is a crowd of hundreds of thousands waiting for us. They'll be watching from balconies, and stands, and the huge screens set up in the Districts' town squares, the antique sets some people will have in their homes. My mother and brother, I think. Streak and Titania. What will they think of my transformation?

Right before Rig and I pull out into City Circle, Pallas runs over and gifts me with a handful of silk. At closer examination, I see two delicate wrist-length gloves—Valencia's solution to my bit of rebellion. I pull them on, sensing the familiar numbness seep into my bones with the roar of the audience. The horses begin to move without provocation and I curl my fingers over the rim of the chariot. For a split second, I glance up at Rig, and wish we weren't forbidden to touch; I want to hold someone's hand.

Instead, we steady ourselves the best we can as we are drawn into the startling light.


	4. Chapter 4: Crack Up

The Arena is nothing like I imagined it. It's a wasteland…desert sprinkled with spiny, tube-like plants and beige rocks that lizards sun themselves on. I am so thirsty, but there is no water to be had, and the sun is burning down on me relentlessly. Heatstroke is imminent.

The air in front of me shifts, takes on the pattern of fish scales, and reveals a small forest far in the distance. My feet drag in the sand but I manage to shuffle in my half-dead manner to the wood. I would cry if I had any tears left in me. Unfortunately I don't—those evaporated with the rest of the water in my body—so I simply cough, and walk as quickly as I can to the pool of water I spy in the middle of the grove.

I throw myself face down in the cool, clean liquid, only to open my eyes underwater to discover the streams of scarlet drifting towards me. The water slaps as I rip my head up out of it, finding the body that has joined me in the oasis. It's Rig, a knife is his stomach, his hand still clasped around the hilt.

I scream. The cold, dry air of my room in the Training Center pours into my lungs as I suck in breath after breath of fresh air untainted by the suffocating heat of my dream. At the same time I ask myself why I would dream of Rig, I know that part of me already feels left behind. We aren't partners, but the idea of being abandoned, without even one ally in the arena horrifies me.

He's not my only choice, as far as allies go, yet I need the closeness of someone from my own district, the familiarity and comfort that can bring in such a dire situation. Other tributes pass by in my mind, the boy with the boots from District Ten, the Twins from Eleven, the golden swimsuit girl from Four. Briefly an image of a boy with red hair comes to me, but I can't remember where he's supposed to be from…

I know I'm not enough on my own. I'm going to need someone to watch my back, even if it's only for a little while. It takes me a long time to get my baring, and the Games go on for weeks in arenas it takes a few days' walk to cover. I won't be able to travel all of it, and I'll need time to scout for an acceptable spot to start from. There isn't going to be any time after the sixty seconds are up at the Cornucopia.

If it were only so easy and I could just kill myself now, like Rig. Then nobody would have to worry—least of all me. The anxiety would be over with. The endless dread. _Yes, if only…_I think.

The carpet is soft and springy beneath my feet, so much so that it muffles the sound of me leaving my room. The hall of our suite is empty, the doors of my mentors, escort, and fellow tribute all closed for the night. After the parade, we all collapsed in relief that nothing had gone awry.

I head for the elevator. The Center has twelve floors above ground, one for each District's tributes. We're on Floor Six, of course. I haven't been to any of the other floors as the contestants are not allowed to associate with each other until they hit the arena. I think for a second that perhaps that's strategic—it makes it easier to kill one another.

The lift shoots up the last six floors, and opens to a corridor identical to the one in our suite. At the end of it, though, is an extra exit. I'm surprised to find it unlocked, and close it silently behind me before I start to climb the stairs.

You can see the balcony on the outside of the Training Center, but no one tells you about it once you're inside. Possibly for this very reason. Who knows what would happen if a tribute decided to throw themselves off the roof?

I wonder how many Tributes have tried to kill themselves. Have any? Or have they simply decided that eventual death at the hands of someone else in the Game is close enough? I suppose some would want to have a little fun before they go; a little luxury until they have to die. The fame is scintillating too, for certain people. I don't have that—just the non-feeling that pervades my mind and body whenever reality gets to be too much.

I was afraid that that might happen in the arena, that my mind might shut off like it's been doing so often lately, and my body would follow suit. I would definitely be easy pickings, then.

Now there's nothing to worry about. It's almost funny to me, how simple the solution is. How needless my self-torture over the Games has been.

Carefully (haha carefully, no need to be that now), carefully, I put my foot on the edge of the wall surrounding the roof. It's short enough that I can hoist my other leg up as well, and stand. A garden occupies the top of the Training Center, and I can hear wind chimes jingling behind me in the breeze. They meld with the shouts and music coming from the streets below, a party to celebrate the opening of the Games.

The midnight air billows around me, wafting the thin material of my nightgown between my legs and up my arms.

What will they do when they find this same dress spattered with blood in the morning, laying over shattered limbs and skin flush with bruises?

They'll take me away immediately, I believe. Cover me quickly so no passerby can tell who it was that threw themselves from twelve stories during the night. Maybe they'll paint it as a tragic accident, spread the lie that I couldn't have been more honored to be chosen in the Reaping, and that, although I was destined to die anyway, my premature departure is a great loss.

My body will be sent home to my family, bathed and clothed in something fresh, perhaps even what I came here in. All boxed up, one dead tribute. Mother and Marten will have a little less time to prepare, but at least they'll know I didn't suffer, that I went out on my own terms. That I controlled this last bit of my life. Titania and Streak will cry with my mother and brother, and then move on. Remember me when they sit in class, or when they're in the factory, watching a new hoverplane roll off the conveyor belt.

And the Capitol will be short one tribute. Rig will be able to guiltlessly kill himself in a few days—not that he's feeling that way anyway. And Pallas, for the first time, won't have had to ready two children for their brutal deaths. Singe and Torch won't know what is going on, maybe simply an atmosphere of shock, sadness. They can return home to more morphling, and continue to enjoy their time in the Capitol each time they're called up to mentor a tribute.

…New tributes. Of course there will be more tributes, more Games. Why hadn't that occurred to me? What will the Capitol really do when they're short one offering from District Six?

I don't even have to consider the answer. I know right away what they'd do: they'd hold another Reaping.

The air's knocked out of me—I can't believe I didn't see how my death would turn out. It seems so obvious. The Capitol can't let people know that they couldn't control one of the tributes. That someone managed to circumvent their yearly reminder of complete domination over our lives. Maybe they wouldn't televise it. Maybe they wouldn't even let the Districts know it was going to happen. But the day that they found me, they would send someone directly to District Six to pull another name. Someone that thought she was safe. Another female tribute to take my place.

And District Six will have given three of its children this year.

If I kill myself, I kill someone else, too. And I can't do it. I feel the tears running from my eyes before the sobs begin, and very soon I'm down off the ledge and curled at the base of the wall, crying at my stupidity, at my selfishness, at my complete immobility as a Tribute. I rest my forehead on the brick, and smack it off the rough red clay again and again. Not enough to kill me, oh no, I won't do that. Just enough to make myself unconscious so I don't have to think about how trapped I am.

"I've been informed that you went to the roof last night."

Pallas is waiting for me when I emerge from my room the next morning.

There must have been cameras. Something else I hadn't thought of. They may not televise us here in the Center, but what is there to stop them from keeping an eye on us every step of the way. "Yes. I did." How much did they see?

"You wouldn't have been successful," he whispers. Not harshly, as I'd expected, more practically rather. We walk down to the dining room for breakfast. "The perimeter of the roof is enclosed in a force field."

Fitting. I was probably an inch away from being zapped backward the whole time I stood on the ledge. All those tears and guilt over what I would have put my family through, and I wouldn't have even been able to jump.

In the daylight, things seem different. My vision is sharper with the help of the bright sun shining through the windows of the suite. And the banquet laid out before us makes my appetite reappear. Today is training day, and although I'm nervous about what skills I can acquire before my time is up there, I'm anxious to get started.

I sit down next to Rig, who butters a roll silently beside Numen. We're dressed in our training clothes, and complement each other again. Each of us has on a sleek, body-fitted shirt made out of some crimson, synthetic material. Valencia says it'll wick away moisture so our bodies say cool. Our black pants stretch, made from the same substance and I don't like the shoes we have to wear—they seem too thin to take much stress.

Rig looks sideways at me, startled by my proximity. He doesn't know that, after last night, I understand his aversion to life in the Games. His almost cocky willingness to take his own life in order to save them the satisfaction. I'm on his side.

Our head trainer is Atala, a tall athletic woman with light brown skin and dark hair. She informs us that the Training Arena is set up in different stations, each with its own subject or specialty that we may move to at will. Rather than perusing the various skills I can learn, I study the other tributes.

There's the girl from District Four, looking about ready to murder her fellow tribute, who is busy flexing his muscles at no one in particular. That will probably come in handy, later. I also recognize Trinket, the long-haired tribute from District One. Her hair is tucked up today, braided elaborately, and pinned—I hope, securely—around her head.

The Twins from Eleven immediately separate, the girl going to the knot-tying station, while the boy heads over to the edible plants table. Maybe they're trying to cover more ground, or are fending for themselves. Rig and I were informed that, if we have any talents, to keep them to ourselves until our time with the Gamemakers. Otherwise, try to absorb skills you think you might lack. For us city tributes, that means anything dealing with the natural world.

Citing this as good a reason as any, I decide to spend most of my time that first day at the edible plant station. Along with the Boy from Eleven, the girl from Ten, and another boy that I think is from Five, join me. Dimly, I realize he is the boy that came to mind last night when I was trying to think of possible allies. He stands out because of his red hair, but I can't recall his name.

Automatically, I feel awful. If I'm going to kill him (or he's going to kill me) I should know his name. Just like at the Reaping though, when I shook Rig's hand, I don't know how to say this.

So I pay close attention to what the instructor says about which plants we can eat and which we can't. I listen when he lists medicinal herbs for bruises and minor cuts. I stop him and ask what something is when it looks too much like something else. Right away, I seize on a delicate, flowering plant named Arnica. It looks like a yellow daisy, with an uncharacteristic white fuzzy center.

"Shock, bruises, wounds." Tibalt says, holding up the flower.

"It looks like a weed," the boy with the red hair says. His soft voice is skeptical.

"Yes. Indeed, but a regular weed will do nothing for you out there. Arnica can tame inflammation and be used to clean cuts. This, however, is not edible."

"Great," observes District Ten. Her hair is in two braids that lay over her shoulders. Her freckled nose crinkles as she tried to commit that piece of information to memory.

Tibalt begins to quiz us once he has gone through his selection of plants a few times. "And this?" He presents us with a floppy plant with large, diamond-shaped leaves. I note the small, orangey blossoms that have yet to open up.

"Comfrey?" I guess.

"Correct," Tibalt smiles. "What does it do?"

"Edible. Speeds healing in fractures, bruises, cuts, and burns."

"Very good. What about this one?" He grasps a branch with slender, pointed leaves. At the base of the branch hang green orbs about the size of my fist.

"Walnut," says Red Hair. "Black Walnut." He's been very good at this, whereas I'm only just getting the hang of identifying things. Granted, the nuts should have helped.

"…And?" Asks our instructor. We stare at him. Red Hair presses his brows together and looks at the ground. In a moment, he comes back up with a smile, knowing he's got it.

"Edible. Open the fruit. Crack the nut."

"Excellent, Shatter. Very edible. Your hands will be stained for days, though." Tibalt reaches behind him and pulls out a plant with tear-shaped leaves. Hairy all the way up the stock, it has tiny white petals that blossom from drooping buds. _Chickweed._

I wait to see if someone else will come up with the answer. "Star-something," says Ten.

Tibalt nods his head to the side. Half-right. "Hm…yes, but what else?"

_Star chickweed, I think. Star Chickweed. _"Star Chickweed," says Shatter.

"Yes! A star-pupil," praises Tibalt. We keep naming plants, or staring dumbly, for the rest of the hour.

Rig, on the other hand, has been occupied at the spear-throwing station, and seems quite adept. I have no idea where he would have learned his technique, but it would valuable if he were planning on lasting beyond the first day in the arena. Sweat pours off of him, and I think he must be over-exerting himself.

When he bends down to rest his hands on his knees, I see that while his arms do glisten a little from the exercise, what I thought was sweat dripping from his face are actually tears.

He's crying.

Furiously, he sucks in air, as if exhausted from throwing so many javelins. I'm not sure what to do—if I should try to help him pull together, or if we're better off if I let him carry on, and not attract attention to him.

Atala is already on her way, though. By the time I get to him, she is leading him from the room and I am left as the only District Six tribute in the training area. The other twenty-two tributes eye me from their stations as if I've personally poisoned him. (Maybe it's best if they think I did—they'll be wary of me before the Games even start.) I ignore it, mostly because I can't think of another way to handle it quick enough, and I don't want to spoil whatever effect I'm having by seeming indecisive.

I can't help but worry about Rig. Sure, he wants to kill himself when we hit the arena, but until then we're here together. The only two that know what Six is like, and share it as home. He's the piece of Six that I've brought with me, and I don't want to lose it before I absolutely have to.

He doesn't come back for the rest of the session, and I end up eating alone, like most of the tributes aside from the Careers, who have become a gang before the Games have even begun. I spend my day hopping from station to station, wondering how much I'm missing that is crucial to my survival. It's possible that there's something here that could provide me with an extra hour, maybe days, and I don't know what it is.

Late in the afternoon, I hover around the archery area, having decided that one-on-one combat is not going to be my best chance. I need something that I can strike at a distance with. At the last minute, I turn away, convinced that no one could be good enough in three days to gain an advantage.


	5. Chapter 5: Get Better

That night we have dinner without Rig. The table is awkward and silent, a perfect second night in the Capitol. I watch the sun go down over the white marble of City Circle, the light reflecting off thousands of windows and glass siding. There's no nature, though. No river or trees. Only marble and stone and silver metal. In an odd way, it reminds me of home. This makes me think of Rig, and I wander to his room where it sits down the hall from mine.

There's no answer to my knock; yet the door isn't locked when I gently turn the knob. The room is identical to mine. A bathroom and a bedroom, with a small sitting area. Where mine has soft greens and rose colors, his is decorated with blue and grey. I find him sprawled on the bed, in the same place I was last night. The side table holds a tray of food, picked from our table by Pallas, probably.

Rig's dusty brown hair sticks jaggedly up on his head, his eyes wide and unseeing. For a split second, I think he's managed to kill himself, but then he blinks. With another flick of his eyes, he startles, as if he just noticed me. He's not catatonic. _He must sleep with his eyes open, _I realize.

"What?" he asks.

What, indeed? There is really nothing I can say to comfort him; nothing to ease the pain of being marked for death. I know he won't be able to find glory in winning, either, because I can't imagine it myself. I have nothing to say to him. So I ask him something.

"What did you do, back home?" It's not going to be better or worse now, knowing about each other.

He looks at me like I'm crazy, then at the wall again. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…I guess, what did you do for fun? Who are your friends? Do you live with your parents? Where do you work, after school?" My curiosity gets the better of me, now that I've let my reluctance drain away. When he doesn't respond, I answer as if he had asked me.

"I live with my mother—she kicked my father out when I when about seven. He works in another part of Panem, I know. He sends me letters, once in a awhile. Short ones. He mostly likes me to write to him. I tell him about school, and whatever my friends and I do. You might know Streak or Titania? They're a year ahead of you, I guess."

No answer. I go on, relieved to be talking about anything with anyone, even if they don't acknowledge me.

"My favorite thing to do is to take the molten glass, the stuff left over from making windows and doors, and drizzle it over an anvil. It cools down right away, and you get these great shapes. I had a great time making these swirls in the shapes of flowers for decorations in one of the train cars we were building. I didn't know what they should look like, so I had to look in all these books that were locked in the Justice Building's basement." I laugh, remembering.

The basement had been filled with cardboard boxes and metal tubs of old books, some of horticulture. For the most part though, I had to rely on ancient catalogues, where people used to order seeds or bulbs from. The images were a little damaged, but I could still see the red roses and yellow snap dragons. Things that might have been able to grow in our district decades ago.

The feel of the pages stays with me, and bobs up sometimes when I think of flowers or plants, the thin, waxy paper between my fingers.

"I have some of the magazines that I found there, 'cause I shoved them up under my shirt when I left. I knew I wouldn't get to go back there."

Rig shifts on the comforter. He lays with his hands folded on his stomach, his chin tucked into his chest. His gaze goes out the window to the Capitol, rapidly drowning in the blues of twilight created by the sky against so much shining stone. "What did you do with them?" he asks.

"The magazines?" I speak to his jawline, abandoning any focus on his face. "They're under my mattress. I was always paranoid that Peacekeepers would come in for some inspection or something, and find them."

His mouth turns up at the corners, much like I've seen cats' do when they're mad, or want something.

"We've never really been free from them, have we?"

"Who? The Peacekeepers?" I think of how they stand at attention at the Reaping, and loiter around the warehouses where our products are stored. The way they wander in and out of the factory, the Canteen. Watching, making sure no one gets too rowdy, or too independent.

"The Capitol," he clarifies. He sits up, crossing his legs as if he's about to hear a story. "They don't even leave us when we're in our apartments—that's what you made me think of. How we're afraid even when they aren't around. The Peacekeepers, yes. But the Capitol, by extension."

He might have been arrested, had we still been in District Six, for saying this. Killed, probably. The conditioned, nervous part of me looks at the door, anxious that a Peacekeeper, or Pallas, or some other Capitol agent will charge in. Belatedly, in the back of my mind, I wonder if we're being watched in our rooms. He sees me hesitate.

"What? They going to file in right now and take us away? When we're just about to be part of the most extravagant show of their power? No, Chrome, I think we're fine."

He used my name. I've garnered this show of intimacy? "I guess not," I conclude. "Why finish now what they can draw out so painfully?" I feel really wicked for saying this, but it also feels good. Very good, to say out loud.

Rig nods his assent. "I'm thinking…what if—what if we did something during the Games. You know, to not go…completely along with their plan."

"Thinking of inciting a rebellion?" I ask, sarcastic, but a little afraid that he might be serious. "They'd kill our families," I remind him. When I first say it, I'm not certain I'm right. But once the words linger in the air between us, I know I am. "They'd kill somebody. Just to show they could. To show how little we matter to them."

Two things connect in my head. "They'll do the same if we kill ourselves when we're in the arena."

Silence. "I don't have anyone they can hurt, if I go through with it. And it'll clear you to win." I think he's joking, however, he holds my gaze.

The thought's ludicrous, though. "We both know I can't win. We agreed on the train."

"I didn't…I…but there's a chance."

"No there's not!" I didn't expect to get this angry, not over someone telling me I could win. "There are Careers. People that know how to survive. People that have grown up in their trades. A coal miner could have an advantage over me!"

"But they won't!" We're both off the bed, glaring at each other. I can tell my face is flushed by the horrible heat beneath my eyes. "The tributes from Twelve are too scrawny; they won't last very long. Not in whatever they've cooked up for us this year."

"Why have you thought of this at all, Rig? Why would you even care about me winning? Neither of us are coming out." What an absurd argument: one person trying to prove she can't win, the other insisting she can.

"Well, fine. If you're going to be that way. If you insist on dying, go right ahead."

"Do you even hear yourself? Mr. I'm-gonna-do-it-myself, telling me I have a chance, when the odds are definitely not in my favor, if they aren't in yours." I try to reason with him, give him my most convincing stare. "Just because there's a chance, doesn't mean there's a probability."

"I didn't say it was probable."

I have no more to say, and leave the room.

* * *

><p>The second day of training, I ignore Rig completely, and concentrate on finding a weapon I can wield half-correctly. There's a knife station, which the Careers have taken over for the most part. Nearby is the archery area that I gave up on last night. I walk slowly around the entire floor, picking up spears, looking at dummies with targets drawn on them indicating kill spots. One grey canvas torso catches my eye, and I get closer, inspecting it up close.<p>

My heart sinks into my chest like it's made of quicksand; I work one of my fingers into a stab wound—one of many that pierce the thick cloth. Had this been a person, it would have been eviscerated, drained of blood and mangled beyond repair. How can I do this?

How will I be able to cut down one person after another, before they get me? I'll hesitate, not only because I've never had to kill someone and don't want to, but because I don't know how.

My mind spins with vague ideas of how to kill and maim without coming into contact with the other tributes. Poison, I think. Fire. Will there be anything to work with in the arena? Some years, tributes have been placed into tundra, or a desert like in my nightmare. Those are generally uninteresting Games, marked by slow deaths by starvation, or hypothermia. When Annie Cresta won a few years ago, the Gamemakers flooded the arena, and, coming from District Four, she survived by out-swimming her competition.

Maybe if I hide long enough, keep myself fed and watered, I can simply wait them out. The Gamemakers will try to flush me from my hiding places, to keep the action going; but at least I wouldn't have to personally slay anyone.

I'm settled on my aversion plan when I sense someone behind me. I turn to find Shatter, the red-headed boy from Five, staring. He's significantly taller than me, but since I'm short that means he's about average. His features are very finely defined, I notice, staring back. They match the slimness of his almost feminine body. Light catches on his eyelashes, bringing a strange highlight to his brown eyes.

"Are you done here?"

I blink, the room expanding once again into an arena full of tributes. Blushing, I nod, leaving thinking that I must seem extremely dim. I'm reminded of the morphling addicts at home, and waiting for me in the suite, fascinated by texture and colors more than reality.

The knot-tying station is deserted, so I busy myself there for a while. I resist the urge to make myself a noose, and instead am taught how to tie a foot snare.

After lunch, I visit the survival station, where I learn with the District Four girl and the boy from Eight how to do various things like kindle a fire, find water, and disguise a campsite. The instructor, Dresden, offers to teach me how to pitch a tent, but I decide that lying inside one would probably be extremely vulnerable, and lower my chances even further. I ask if there is a way to make a warm enough bed with whatever I can find. He seems to like my enthusiasm, and tells me about making tightly-packed structures with snow, and camouflaging with pine needles.

Before heading back up to our suites at the end of the day, I catch Shatter looking dejectedly at the set of practice dummies. He weighs a knife in his palm and throws it carelessly at the floor near the foot of my dummy. Sighing, he leaves the knife where it sticks and walks away.


	6. Breakthrough

Day three: time to show them what I'm capable of.

…Nothing.

I almost laugh at the absurdity. Pallas meets with me this morning before I go down to the Training Center.

"You don't seem to have any discernible talent, do you?" he says, cutting to the chase. "I suppose we should have spoken before now, then." His sarcasm offends me, but I inwardly concede that neither Rig nor I have behaved very cooperatively.

I glare at his whitened eyebrows and lashes, try to think of an insult about what talent he could possibly have that isn't related to pulling slips of paper out of fish bowls. "I have been able to talk to Rig, though."

"Seriously?" I'm unable to keep my surprise to myself.

Pallas gives a small smile, nodding. "Yes. Indeed I have. He has a masterful plan that will eventually get himself killed."

"I gathered that," I say, disappointed, thinking of our time in his room. No new developments there, then.

"You didn't choose to train apart, so I feel I'm crossing no boundaries sharing this with you," Pallas says.

"Alright." Our escort seems uncertain about what he's about to say next, but he speaks, haltingly.

"There's something he's not saying, and it's not simply sharing his feelings—he's keeping something close to the vest, like all tributes in one way or another, but in a significant way, nonetheless. One that might end up affecting our strategy."

"What does this have to do with me?" I ask, bored, almost, with Rig's constant brooding. "To play the game, one of us has to die anyway. I simply won't count him out as a threat. I won't even consider what his talent could be. I'll steer clear." I don't want to see him die anyway—whether by his hand, or another's.

Pallas gives a solid nod, and stares into my eyes with his dark gray ones. Like Rig's, but with more compassion, less desperation. "Before you go in there—I want you to think of what comes most naturally to you; even if it's not a skill. Even if you think it is the most useless reaction to a presentation to Gamemakers in the history of the Games."

"Okay." I can think of nothing else to say. My mind is a blank; for speech, for answers, for ways to keep myself alive.

"Remember: think of your District, and think of you."

I nod as though this means something to me.

For the morning, we train, some of us swinging round the stations we missed, trying to pick up last-minute tips. The rest pick something and stick to it. District Four seems to be an expert at climbing ropes, vines, and anything else that hangs down to where her long arms can reach. Shatter stays near the knives.

As for me, I kill the rest of my time at the basics station—an area that looks like a campsite with pieces pulled from all types of regions. Still frozen by my uncertainty, I pick up a piece of flint, sit cross-legged on the ground. In the workshop, we use a spindly metal striker, but the premise is the same. I knock the flint against a nearby rock and create a tiny spark.

If the fire were big enough I could heat a weapon of some sort in it, I muse. A spear, a flaming roll of grass that I could shoot or drop on someone. Both those tactics would need advantages, though—of height or proximity. Unless I set the whole arena on fire, I guess.

For some reason, the ideas sticks…

_Unless I set it all on fire._

Suddenly, after what seems like hours of dead air, my brain picks up a signal. I'm sure I don't know enough about twigs and grass, so I get the trainer to show me how to build a fire with supplies from a wilderness. It seems slow, but by the time I've created a small smoking pile of debris, I'm convinced I could do it in a pinch.

My eyes dart around the vast room, filled with different tools, supplies, and weapons. What I'm looking for should be easy to find, and just as I'm about to make my way over to it, the Tributes begin to be called.

I don't know what Rig has been doing for our time here—he simply looks as despondent as usual, and didn't even practice while we await our turn with the Gamemakers.

No one reappears after their performance, and I can't see any trace of what Rig might have done to display his talent, whatever it is, if he even tried.

It seems I have a fixed amount of time to accomplish this, so I set to work at once, shaking Rig and his lurking pessimism from my thoughts.

Quickly, I hurry to the station I spied last during training this morning, grabbing my instrument of death. I dart back to the weapons area, choosing a knife at random, making certain only that it is sharp, and I head over to one of the soft blue mats that have been laid out every day for us to practice combat on.

Ignoring the Gamemakers, I crouch low and find the seam on the plush mat. With one swipe, I dig the knife into the threading and pull with the strength of someone who has worked over an anvil for five years. Once the insides are visible, I pull the small iron cooking pot to my side, angle it, and flip the piece of flint against it until a spark catches at the wooly intestines, causing the mat to smolder from the inside out.

In the following moments, I destroy the seams of the rest of the mat, leading the fire into a perfect rectangle of burning, melting plastic and stuffing. My very own, miniature arena.

Dinner that night is especially tasty, almost as if I had cooked it myself. Still on a high from my breakthrough, and from the added bonus of destroying a bit of Capital property, I eat a tossed salad filled with chopped carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, and other vegetables scarcely even dreamed about in the vast furnace that is Six. I recognize some of the ingredients only from the smuggled magazines that sit home beneath my mattress.

I share briefly what transpired in my session with the table, the guests of which mutter appreciatively, glad to know that I was able to form some sort of strategy, at least for the time being. Rig remains silent, and I drop back into my own thoughts as his silence spreads. I munch my salad slowly, savoring the coolness of the carrots and cucumbers. For a minute, I wonder about the advice Pallas gave me, about remembering my district and myself.

Fire is only one element of life in the plants, but I realize that I've kept the presence of that burning iron and chrome close to my heart, and somewhere deep in my subconscious, to have pulled it so quickly to my imagination. The design that the fire took—no matter that it was a simply shape—was all mine. You have to think quickly when playing with molten metal, and raw fire is no different, I think.

I know that this may be my best chance. I just wonder what Rig's is.

That night, my score from the Gamemakers is a 7, and honestly much more than I expected, thrilled as I was at my discovery. Valencia pats my shoulder. "Above average. Very good."

Rig's face appears next, and it seems we all wait with bated breath for his score to show. Only he is unmoving, unemotional. The screen lights:

A 10.

As a group, Pallas, our stylists, even Torch and Singe look over at the boy Tribute from District Six. He betrays no emotion—not even an indication that he knows we're watching him. Just like when we watched the recaps on the train after the Reaping.

We all must be thinking the same thing. For someone that intends to obliterate his own chances, his odds are unusually favorable.

What did he do in that room?

I study his carefully rigid face in the glare of the tributes from District Seven as they flash across the screen. What is he playing at in this one?

And then it comes to me, at the breakneck speed of what is obvious cutting through what is absolute stupidity: He's playing the Game.


End file.
